some day i wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me. today is one of those days i wish i could have woken up with the clouds far behind me. it was a year ago today that my pop passed away. it hurts so much. which is kind of funny considering pop and i had a love / hate relationship lol. and its kind of funny im sitting here writing about my dad, listening to Somewhere Over the Rainbow – Israel Kamakawiwo’Ole and crying. why? cause i miss my dad. who’d have thunk it? *wry grin*

i knew this day was coming for a while (but i had to ask my sister just what day it was that pop passed away because i do not remember this time last year at all) and it seemed the closer it got, well hell, the worser i got. yes worser. i don’t care that its not a word, it is to me today. so raspberries to you. i could feel the sadness creeping closer day by day, the panic and anxiety, no matter how hard i tried to push it back it just wouldn’t budge. and above it all, the love i had for my dad despite our issues just couldn’t drive the pain away. its been 17 years since mom went home and thats a dull ache now but i dread the end of june nonetheless. maybe that will eventually happen with pop.

this last year was a year of firsts. our first fathers day without dad – that REALLY sucked. memorial day, fourth of july, labor day, his birthday (that was really hard), thanksgiving christmas and new years. those were particularly bad as pop always came to our home for dinner. lol i have a pic of pop sleeping on the couch with kilo sound asleep beside him. pop and tom always passed out after dinner. and now i wont have that anymore and it still makes me sad and hurts.

i got the text a couple weeks ago from my sister that his cat Bach passed away. i know pop is happy now though, he’s got both his babies with him. coclet passed away several years ago. that was the first time i saw my dad cry in lord, 30 years? he was heart broken, he had planned on going out with coclet. he brought coclet to tom and i so we could bury him and he was totally destroyed. coclets grave is out back. every time pop came over, he went over to coclets headstone and talked to him for a few minutes before coming in. pop loved animals. there was never any doubt about that. when i was a little girl, he found a bunny on the side of the road that was injured. he somehow picked it up, brought it home and took it to the vet the next day. whatever happened to it i don’t remember, but that was my dad. my dogs absolutely ADORED pop. now they bark at EVERYTHING that comes down the driveway, especially pez , and that stupid little dog barks at leaves, but when pops car pulled into the driveway – they ran to the window and started dancing, they KNEW pop pop was here and had treats for them. not a single bark came out of their mouths, but the happy whines – pop pop’s here, pop pop’s here!!!

when i first started socially unattractive a couple of years ago, i wrote a tribute to my dad. then made him read it lol. he always told me when i was growing up that i should be a writer, how all my teachers thought i should be a writer, blah blah blah. but i once took a class on writing and we had to write a short story and the teacher, a published author actually told me i should write but partying took first place in my life lol. but i wrote about my dad, how he was an awesome dad despite being such a bastard. i wrote about how he would stock my sisters and i up with goodies for mischief night with instructions on which house to hit and when we came back empty handed, he went out and got more eggs and toilet paper lol. how alix and i wanted a bottle of rum and he went out and got it. at least i think i remember that – i do remember al and i riding to delaware in the back of a pick up to get a bottle and damn that was a cold night lmsao. but pop read what i wrote, thanked me for it and told me he loved me. that is a rarity.

naturally pop and i spent years at loggerheads with each other. pop, a 3 figure iq attorney who actually did know it all, and me, a hippie born 15 years too late desperate to do things my way and get out from under my parents control. those were some interesting times lol. see i can laugh at it now! 😉 but then… sigh. but he did try to encourage my sisters and i in things that we loved. music is the only thing i love with all my being (my butthead notwithstanding). so i was going to concerts damn near every weekend for about 4 years. i knew every shady character at the spectrum on a first name basis lol but those truly are some of the best memories i have. oh shit – pop taking me to my first concert – i went alone to styx and he walked me to the door. how fucking embarrassing is that???? lmsao.

then along came the grandkids. do we really need to go there? pop was the.quintessential.poppop. the world rose and set on my kids – and then my sisters kids when they finally came along. there was no cost too expensive, nothing that was out of his reach for them. *chuckling* my dad taught my kids from an early age how to sign a chit at aronomink. well hell, he did that with us when we were growing up. we learned to swim there in the 70’s and my kids learned to swim there in the 90’s/00’s. i have happy memories of the club and the bad bear button <seg>. i can only hope my kids have the same. i rarely went there with them when pop took them – tattoo’s generally were frowned upon… but then again, i never liked to infringe on pop’s time with the kids. the only times we did were the annual pop trips to great adventure or hershey park. those were some fun times, just like they were when we were kids. i am so glad though that pop got to watch my kids grow up. but it makes me sad though that my kids now have an empty spot in their lives where pop was in their heart. they dont remember gram and how she worshiped them and the ground they learned to walk on. but i do. my mom loved those two so very much. so i told minime this morning to think happy thoughts for pop pop today and that he would be looking down on her and her brother, beaming with pride and love. he will always be with them.